116 FARMING ON FACTORY LINES 



A little experiment on the lines indicated will easily 

 prove to anybody that a crop cut after the dew has 

 dried off will dry all the better and " make " all the 

 quicker than one cut in a wet condition. 



THE EARLY START 



Of course, in hay-making time, a farmer likes to 

 make an early start. It is probably the desire of an 

 early start which originated the heresy about cutting 

 the grass with the dew on, or more likely to get young 

 lads out of bed about three o'clock in the morning ! ! 

 In actual practice, it is better not to cut the crop, 

 especially a vetch crop, until the dew has practically 

 dried off, and if necessity compels either early morn- 

 ing or late evening cutting of crops, don't leave the 

 swathe lying for one or more days. As soon as the 

 dew has dried off the swathe, it should be turned 

 over with the swathe-turner and kept constantly 

 stirred up. 



Our forefathers admittedly could not have adopted 

 this plan, for the labour of constantly turning was too 

 big a proposition to be tackled by hand. Further, 

 they never liked to break hay out of the swathe (for 

 the reason an undisturbed swathe will turn a lot of 

 rain), until they saw a possibility of getting the hay 

 into cock after the swathes had been once disturbed. 



That marvellous invention, the swathe-turner, has 

 quite got over the labour problem associated with 

 hand turning, and has caused another old saw, 

 " Make hay whilst the sun shines," to go by the 

 board. To-day, with a good swathe-turner and side- 

 delivery rake, we can often make hay whether the 

 sun shines or not. In passing, it may be remarked 

 that the farmer whose land is not extensive 

 enough or whose capital is too limited to purchase 



